Boko Haram Kills Scores Of Civilians In Cameroon Attack

YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Boko Haram fighters have shot or burned to death about 90 civilians and wounded 500 in ongoing fighting in a Cameroonian border town near Nigeria, officials in Cameroon said Thursday.

Some 800 Islamic extremists attacking the town of Fotokol have “burned churches, mosques and villages and slaughtered youth who resisted joining them to fight Cameroonian forces,” Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakari said.

The insurgents from Nigeria also looted livestock and food in the fighting that began Wednesday and was continuing Thursday, Bakari told The Associated Press.

Boko Haram is using civilians as shields, making it difficult to confront them although reinforcements have arrived in Fotokol, according to military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck.